Feeling convicted

     My mom became a Christian in her 30's.  She was (and still is) an avid reader and an early riser.  I remember waking up in the mornings and finding her drinking her coffee and reading the Bible.  She was always able to quote scripture to encourage people and it wasn't because she had memorized it in Sunday School.  She knew it because she read the Word regularly.

     This is something I really struggle with.  I go through spells where I am diligent reading scripture and then spells where I go weeks or even months without opening my Bible other than for church.  I am totally ashamed writing that.

     I want to be the kind of mom where my kids see me reading the Bible, where I can encourage them with God's words and not my own, where I can be an example for them to follow.  I also know that I am usually in a better place mentally and definitely in a better place spiritually when I am regularly reading my Bible.
This is something God has put on my heart recently.  I need to get back into the Word.  I know that if I obey Him in this, my life will feel less stressful, I will handle things better, yell at my kids less, be kinder to my husband....I know this.  But I have been struggling with just getting started.   I thought about making this my September goal but realized I need to make this a life changing goal, not just something I do for a month.
    
     As I was praying about this last week, I realized that the only thing I have been faithful in over the last few years is praying.  And the reason I have been faithful in it is that I have accountability with my prayer partner (if you don't have a prayer partner, I greatly encourage you to get one.  It is an amazing thing knowing someone is praying for you on a regular basis and keeps you praying regularly as well).

     What better way to get back into the Word than to have some accountability.  So I emailed my prayer partner and asked if she wanted to venture into this with me.  Today she agreed and I cannot tell you how excited I am for this.  We are going to set a simple weekly goal and then email each other at the end of the week and say what we felt we learned from the portion of scripture we read. 

     What I love about this is that it's a weekly goal.  I wish I was faithful to read every day but right now it is hard on some days to fit it in.  Getting up early is not always an option when I already get up at 5 for work. So a weekly goal will work well for me.  I will keep you posted on how it's going.    

August

Today is August 15th.  August....August.   Yes, I am repeating that to myself because I can hardly believe this month is half over.  Half over.  School starts in 3 weeks (I think, I am actually avoiding looking at the calender and figuring it out exactly b/c I can hardly believe it).
So I am halfway through the month and have no real goals.  At this point, I am just hoping to survive the month, enjoy the last moments of summer, and get the kids ready for school. 
Maybe in September I will have something better for you.
As for July, I think it was to get as much fresh fruit as possible. We didn't get any blackberries.  Still hoping to get some of those but we picked lots of raspberries and blueberries.  We will be getting about 50 pounds of peaches next week to deal with and I would still love to get a bunch of green beans.  
This summer has just been too crazy.  I like to tell myself it will be a little less chaotic once school starts but then I start thinking about soccer practice and homework and carting kids to and from school and really, who am I kidding? So let's just enjoy a little bit more of summer while we can!